“Chomsky’s concept of NECESSARY ILLUSIONS is linked to power elites dominating how life happens, with part of the population — about 20% who make up the political class and are expected to participate as cultural managers in a limited fashion — are indoctrinated, and most people — the other 80% of the population — are marginalized, diverted from political awareness and participation in self-governing, and reduced to apathy so they don’t vote or take charge. Media are a tool of society’s power elites and owned and controlled by them and are used to impose those iIllusions that are Necessary to keep people diverted from the political process.”
http://hope.journ.wwu.edu/tpilgrim/j190/Chomsky.summary.html
Regarding Thought Control in a Democratic Society, Chomsky makes these points:
1) Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
2) Ordinary people have remarkable creativity.
3) People have a fundamental need for creative work, which is not being met in systems where people are like cogs in a machine.
4) What would make more sense as a way to govern is a form of rationalist-libertarian socialism — not one that increasingly functions without public input. Chomsky advocates a system where a community and its members run things in a democratic fashion and whose people do not function as some sort of wage slaves.
5) People need to be able to detect forms of authority and coercion and challenge those that are not legitimate.
6) The major form of authority that needs challenging is the system of private control over public resources.
7) The First Amendment means that democracy requires free access to ideas and opinions.
8) Democracy in America is not functioning in an ideal sense but more in the sense that Lippmann noted in Public Opinion (where a specialized class of about 20 percent of the people — but who are also a target of progaganda — manages democratic functioning) and, in effect, are under control of a power elite, who more or less own the institutions. The masses of people (80 percent) are marginalized, diverted and controlled by what he calls Necessary Illusions.
9) Manufacturing consent is related to the understanding that indoctrination is the essence of propaganda. In a “democratic” society indoctrination occurs when the techniques of control of a propaganda model are imposed — which means imposing Necessary Illusions.
ThePeaceResource.com 